Fogarty's Dream Boat

The world had been such a noisy place since V.J day that the Irish--even in the U.S.--had hardly been able to get in a word of protest against England. But last month, New York's Irish-born Mayor William O'Dwyer got some stirring intelligence from home: Sir Basil Brooke, the British Prime Minister of partitioned Northern Ireland, had 1) banned Saint Patrick's Day parades among his constituents, and 2) announced that he would soon visit the U.S.

Bill O'Dwyer did not miss the cue. "Brooke," he cried, "is one foreign dignitary who will not be welcomed at City Hall. If by any chance he is received at the Hall, it'll be because I'm dead."

Brickbats at the Window. When the news was relayed to him, Sir Basil tried to turn it with a soft word. But his answer was lost in a series of outraged shouts. John J. Hearne, first Irish ambassador to the U.S. and a newcomer to Washington, characterized the partition of Ireland as a "crime against the whole principle of democratic government." Then Rhode Island's Congressman John Fogarty carried the ringing cause to the floor of Congress.

In the midst of last week's irascible squabbling over ECA, he reproposed an amendment which had been cold-shouldered when he thought it up last year. Fogarty wanted the U.S. to withhold Britain's $687,100,000 share of ECA dollars until the Redcoats got out of Northern Ireland. Last week Congressmen with Irish names, and others who were only looking for a chance to embarrass the Administration, suddenly and whimsically leaped aboard Fogarty's dream boat. After being assured that they could duck out again whenever they wanted, they voted it in, 99 to 66.

The news hit the headlines with a crash like a brickbat sailing through a precinct station window. Britain's refusal to grant Irish unity was an understandably serious problem to the Irish--but should it be allowed to split the two principal allies in the cold war? Ireland's Prime Minister John Costello applauded Fogarty heartily and said a few statesmanlike words about "free peoples of the world" and England's "great wrong." Somebody fired off a bomb in Belfast (a small one which only injured one policeman). But a great many earnest U.S. citizens shredded their morning news papers into confetti and shouted to their wives that Congress had finally gone completely nuts.

Records in the Attic. Congress duly took it all back two days later (with an unrecorded standing vote calculated to insulate backsliders against the hoots of their Irish constituents), and the world was left once more with the larger problems of international life. But there was no denying that it had been a fine, nostalgic performance, though a little cracked--something like John McCormack singing "The minstrel boy to the war is gone" on a record which had been in the attic since 1925.

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